By Elizabeth Howcroft
LONDON (Reuters) – Crypto firm Tether’s Chief Technology Officer Paolo Ardoino will also become its CEO from December 2023, the company said on Friday, in a surprise management shake-up for one of the crypto world’s top tokens.
Current CEO, Jean-Louis van der Velde, will “transition to an advisory role for Tether”, the company said in a statement.
Tether issues a stablecoin, also called Tether, which is designed to maintain a 1:1 dollar peg and is widely used in crypto-to-crypto trading.
There is $83.5 billion worth of Tether in circulation, making it the third-biggest cryptocurrency after bitcoin and ether, according to CoinGecko.
Little is known about van der Velde, who keeps a low public profile. It is Ardoino who acts as the public face of the company, posting on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, regularly and speaking to journalists.
Ardoino became chief technology officer of Tether in 2017, the company said.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft; Editing by Louise Heavens)
